So, you prefer sitting indoors looking at a large group snake through beatiful terrain for days, right?

There are many among us who think that the Tour de France actually is the original "slow TV" show.

More recently, Norwegian state broadcasting company NRK has made several broadcasts of things that take some time to complete. Last year's "reality show edition" featured the birds in a colony just outside the easternmost town in Norway.(30 sec short short short and ultra fast trailer here).

Earlier, they have followed the coastal express boat (not so fast by today's standards) from Bergen to Kirkenes, live, minute by by minute. They have also tracked some of our railway stretches and a canal-boat journey in inland southern Norway. Now, it is that time of the year again, and this time - back to my original point:

You do have a liking for sitting indoors looking at pictures of a large group snake through beatiful terrain for days, don't you?

This year - they will follow the only real Arctic Race that moves like the peloton - the reindeers - on their migration from their inland winter habitat to the greener grasses near the coast and on the islands.

Why on earth am I writing this here? First, of course because I am at home and don't have anything more useful to do because I would be looking at the show (or maybe it isn't called a show, perhaps it is called a slow?) but - this is one of the special things about slow TV - it won't start before it's time, and when there are animals involved you can't really know exactly when it's time. The reindeer won't start moving tonight cause it is too cold and the snow is too hard, they can't find food on their way as it is locked away under the icy crusts. So they will start when they feel like starting

Second, because a nickname for our champion is Boazo - it's lappish and it means reindeer. Its a fitting name for an athlete that moves around in large groups. So here's a chance to see where Edvald Boasson Hagen got his name from. That's the cycling link These slow broadcasts are usually open on the NRK website, so I take a chance to share the link here: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/reinflytting-minutt-for-minutt

tough conditions this year lead to a split in the pack, the weaker half (or seemed to be as many as 2/3 ) was picked up by the broomwagon already before the start....they'll get a free ride to the coast.

The pack that's moving is really small to my eyes, maybe they'll meet some more further up the road. The artic sunset though...

Awesome is the word, yes! I love the dog helping do the herding. I have herding dogs, and I've been working them moving geese (Canada geese, unwanted vermin) off golf courses and school grounds - where they leave tons of poop. My dogs can move at 25 miles an hour, which would have been good enough to keep up with me back when I could really ride fast.

I suppose traditionally the herders would have been on skis? Or would they have used horses?

I've had the reindeer on for a couple of hours now. This really IS awesome. I'm enjoying the music choices, since these are tune I would never never never hear in the US, and there is often some interesting stuff going on outside the US (fancy that).

I love seeing somebody actually wearing an ushanka style hat, with the earflaps and all. And mittens. I've got two ushanka - a shearling sheep and a fox. I look like a nutcase when I wear them on a cold day around here. But we rarely get days cold enough for me to wear the fox hat. Need about -20 F to justify that hat (WARM). And I often use my mittens. We called them choppers when I was a kid, knit mitten under a buckskin mitt shell. Warm. But nobody else around here wears mittens.

I tell ya what, if they added a few more dogs, they could cut the number of snowmobiles way back. But then the guys would have nothing to do but go back to the house, get drunk, and play cards, eh?

Flat grey. Lovely winter day.

Later, y'all. Got work to do.

Oops - looks like the reindeer decided it was break time, too! Somebody's tired!